by Garret Ford
“Me?” I said.
“Come and receive enlightenment from the vessel?” She said.
“Yes.” I said, skin electric in anticipation.
The orgy is as orgies are; flesh upon flesh, writhing, grunting, sweating, exploding with orgasmic atoms in fusion. The center of the cosmos; a desperate crawling chaos. We lay afterward, staring up at the night sky in the star chamber of the Ashram.
“You accepted enlightenment from vessel. Now, embrace and be part of the whole- I will pray for your transformation.” Thus, spoke the guru, before he nodded off in the afterglow.
We laid there, naked, clinging to each other, in the dark.
“You wanted to take the spiritual no-mind by-pass. You don’t become enlightened by just saying you are.” I said.
“Are you enlightened?” The young woman asked.
“I wouldn’t want to be,” I shrugged. “I have all of eternity to have no mind and not exist, so why would I want to do that when I have the gift of life, mind, and thought in this tiny instant.” I said.
“But life and thought are suffering.” The older woman said.
“Everything ends eventually. But that makes the moments that you have more wondrous. You are alive in this corner of time and space in this moment, against all probability, you exist, and will someday not. That blessing outweighs the suffering.” I said.
They embraced me and for the first time, I felt loved and connected; perhaps enlightenment, perhaps endorphins. Either way, I felt fucking amazing.
“Finally, I’m home.” I said.
“Sorry Muffin, good story, but wouldn’t it have been better if you just punched the Kaiser right in the noodle and then they threw you a ticker tape parade?” My coworker laughed.
“Come on, it was believable right?” I said.
“Not even a little. You aren’t that eloquent. Not even a little. Now did I ever tell you about when I was in cult?” My coworker said.
“What? No!” I said spinning in my chair.
“Oh yeah, it was far-fucking-out. In this shit hole yokel town, this rich guy set it up in his basement of all places, had a bunch of followers too. Tenets of Buddhism all twisted up with Christianity. I wonder what happened to it. I dated a girl- I met there, well, years later after we had both been out of the cult, nice girl, didn’t work out thought.” He laughed and scratched his scraggly beard.
“You did not!” I said poking him in the side. “Old horn dog.”
“Man, cults fuck you up. I miss it though. Was fun. Hanging around like minded people, talking about stuff I cared about. Sure, beats this dump.” He said looking around the dilapidated office.
“This place isn’t so bad.” I said.
“This place is a joke. Once, I had these fans of my writing- they took me for dinner and stuff- it was fucking sweet. They were convinced I was hiding hidden messages for them; this was back when newspaper was a job you could have. Truthfully, I was hidden messages in there- but not the messages they were finding! I wanted to be a spy, or something when I was younger but- this stuff, kind of puts a kibosh on that.” My coworker said lighting a joint up.
“Oh well.” I crooned “What the hell.”
“Here’s to wasted potential.” My coworker said, raising his joint high and put on his coat.
“Are you going to hog that whole spliff or share like a civilized man?” I asked.
“Mine, mine, mine.” He said blowing smoke in my face; I inhaled sharply, trying to get a secondary high.
“No fair.” I pouted. “Meanie.”
“Chaos can’t be fair, muffin.” He said, walking toward the door.
“Wait for me!” I said, following him.
I stand with my assault squad, black body armor, armed with guns and riot shields. I was there to observe, count, and report. I was armed with a clipboard, baton, and a pistol- for executing deserters. Days blur together, nights are held together by drink and the devil. How many lives ended by writing or ruined by checking a box or writing my initials? Surreal. The results of my reports eventually reach me, the broken homes, the mass graves, the jails, everything. Varying degrees of misery sprung from acts of necessary violence. Everyone gets into the noose eventually; I only make their appointment.
I had been naïve entering the field. I thought I would help people. I realized, doing this work, I am an agent of Karma. I inflict suffering on others, to purge their attachments to life, to spouses, to children, to jobs, to identity. Through the torture, they are purged of pride and vanity; through execution they are purged of their gluttony and lust. By being purged of these sins- they are freed from the cycle.
I remain in the cycle, inflicting and receiving suffering. I have gratitude; in those greatest moments of loss, I am being purged of my attachments. I suffer, that I might free others of suffering, I suffer so I can return to free more from their attachments, their suffering enlightening them- and me. The suicides, the accidents, the deaths, the divorce. I know now- such pain is an exquisite pain- one that would purge me of my attachments, purge my karma, and free me.
“All clear, charge the compound!” I wave my baton.
Automatic fire opens from the ridge; two men on my left flank are cut in half. The rest of my squad retreat behind cover.
“Air support, foes entrenched; code: Golf, Foxtrot.” I radio.
A whistling noise is heard, a mortar shell exploded the guard tower across the courtyard from us- killing our sniper.
“Heavy casualties expected- mortars inbound.” I radio.
“Comes with the territory.” I remind myself.
Our air support thrums and opens fire with a precision missile. I adjusted my gas mask slightly, out of habit; I fall in behind the riot shields. Grasping my clipboard and pen tightly. On the hill above us, the glorious conflagration, the cultists flesh is set aflame, burning munitions popping and exploding. The helicopter strafed the keep; the resonance chamber was there, allegedly- the officer panicked.
“Air support, cease strafing run,- if the resonance chamber is hit- we’re all toast and they’ll have to redraw the map!” My officer yelled into the radio; the helicopter ceased attacking.
My wings are broken.
Will and wit carry me.
Ghost out of the machine.
Vibration of particles
The point in space.
Encompassing all.
This flesh is ephemeral- the soul- eternal.
I am at all points and none.
Silence in the heavens.
The distance between,
The motes are infinite- yet zero.
Each mote containing infinite cosmos of detail,
Each cosmos containing motes of infinite detail.
Time weds space in man’s eyes.
There the motes commune.
All motes are moving,
All other motes,
Each mote has arrived
Another mote.
Entrapped,
Enchanted.
Entanglement.
The grapes are sacrificed
Great though they stood- the orchards burned.
Cithern is sundered.
Wailing is endemic.
Vessel bearer.
Vessel fleeting- bring sweet wines for the weary king.
Lost in the gyre.
Abominable pain. Body has ceased to be.
Hurdling toward the damned dusty ground.
I am the end bringer comet. I am the morning star.
The doors of perception flung open.
Fire.
The children of men look up,
The third eye perceive all that is.
All that has been, all that is, and what will come.
Judgment is rendered upon the wicked and righteous.
The white abyss devours the mundane world below me.
The curtain,
As promised by Flammarion promised is lifted.
Great old gods! Yes! I accept you!
The wheels within wheels,
/> Great celestial choir calls me!
Thus, I ascend.
“The lash! Give me the lash!” I beg her as she strikes me across the face; what glory! How it stings my flesh.
The lash! The flagellation! The joy! The whip- oh the whip upon my back. Mea culpa, Mea culpa! She whips me, savagely. I am nearly orgasmic with pain. Finally roused to explosion, I turn, and she drops the whip.
“Make- a disgusted face- like I’m touching you- and, you don’t want me to, then slap me, here.” I whisper in her ear and point to the fleshy part of my cheek.
“You disgust me.” She obliges and spits in my face. “Fucking pig. You are worthless, I hate you.”
Pain, disgust, helplessness, and arousal. Instantly, I am hard as rock. My eyes roll back with each new insult. I grasp her throat and bite her ear.
“Put the cuffs on me” She whispers, then kisses my ear, I sadistically oblige; Firm, flesh against flesh, pulled back. Helpless.
“I want you to hurt me.” She said, voice trembling, soaked through her underwear, I oblige.
“Your cunt is unworthy, time to fuck your ass.” I crowed.
Choking, gasping, writhing, screaming- I tighten my hands around her neck. Grunting and grinding flesh, sopping wet fucking, plunging sputters, and squeals of delight- and pain. Sprays of spit, sex, shit, cum, all stain the floor. Afterwards, we crawl to the mattress on the floor of the basement and lay staring at the ceiling, bruised knees, red cheeks, welts, panting, completely exhausted but exhilarated.
“Sometimes, I wonder… when you fuck me like that…” She said, hesitating. “You aren’t mad, right?”
“No.” I lied. “Not at all. I get into it when we do this.”
She clings to me, in that funny way that she does. Clutching me close, I put my arm around her, smelled the sweat on her. Intoxicating.
“I love the way you hurt me.” She said.
“Good.” I said.
Chapter 20-
“Death refuses no dancer.”
Chelsea N. Oppenheimer.
There isn't any wind as we walk through the freshly fallen snow in the bleak wintry field. The world outside the hunt doesn't exist. My father is ahead of me, his bulky wool hunting jacket with deer embroidery and large rifle slung over his shoulder. I stop to admire frost on the trees. I can see my breath, but I am not cold. My father is taciturn as was his custom in hunting, a study in silence. Scares the game away. Growing up in the bush teaches you weird habits; you talk less, listen more, walk softly, watch carefully, shot only when sure.
I hadn't ever shot anything aside from targets, but it was time for that to end. The prey was a herd of deer we had been tracking since the early morning. They had been spooked up out of their meadow.
We were the predators, they were the prey.
We are the hunters, they are the hunted.
For all the talk of shades of gray and spectrum; life is a binary system. Predator or prey. You are alive or dead. Nothing in between. We consume the flesh to take the strength; the flesh feeds us so we can continue to fight and live. Thus, we thank our prey. They prey knows the cycle of nature; we merely enact nature’s will. Without malice, or spite. In the end, everyone- is a either a deer or a wolf.
I walk slowly behind father feeling the crunch of the snow underneath my feet. I wonder what my city friends are doing right now. Probably in a warm house watching television and eating McDonalds. Hollow food and acts for hollow lives. Sheep in the sun.
I stop; my father has stopped and crouched down with his rifle ready. He motions me to follow him and he slowly creeps his way towards a fallen log. He points up to the hillside, a herd of deer grazing.
“You take the first shot.” My Father said.
“Okay.” I whispered.
I huddle up beside the fallen log and look through the scope on my rifle. I can see them clearly now. Minding their business, unaware the death looms. I feel a flutter of excitement and dread as I hug the butt of the rifle into my shoulder. I press the safety off, I cock the hammer. I relax as I line up the cross-hairs. Tenderly, gently, the inert club of wood and steel was tool for killing.
I control my breathing and hold my rifle barrel steady as I take aim. I slip my finger behind the trigger guard. I realign the cross-hairs as the deer moves. I aim near the shoulder-blade near the front of the chest for where the heart is. Then, softly, gently, as a lover beckons their betrothed- I squeeze the trigger. The blast thunders through the river valley and the deer scatter. I look through the scope for my quarry and see it taking a few pained steps before falling forward into some brush on the hill.
“Go get the deer, I will get the truck.” My Father said.
I ejected the empty from my rifle and loaded another shell in case the deer wasn't dead; safety on, and run up the steep hill covered in brush, but I moved with a speed that was beyond me. I am a wolf.
I clambered up the hill and I could feel my heart pounding as I got closer. I stoop down to the deer, bloodied and still in the fresh fallen snow. The deer still warm but dead.
I grab hold of its legs and begin to drag it up the hill. It was light as a feather. I climbed through the barb wire fence. Afterward I pulled the deer under the bottom wire and I stopped.
The icy mist had come; I could only see a few hundred yards in each direction and the snow began to fall again. The world shrunk around me. Soon all that existed was me, my rifle, the deer I had shot, and the tiny patch of snowy hilltop, with a short length of fence that faded into the bleak white mist that was surrounding me. I cleared a spot in the snow and sat down beside the deer. I took off my glove and placed my hand on its chest near the wound that had killed it.
Lifeless fixed gaze. Moments ago, you were alive- now dead. Moments ago, life was happy, now over. Moments ago, you learned everything you thought was wrong. Nobody believes it, when death comes. Every day starts like any other, yet one is our last. When the end comes, do we know it has come or like the deer; will it come while you are grazing- unaware that death was in waiting, planning and preparing, your demise.
The mist and snow that blotted out the world. Death, not a yawning black void but an encroaching white abyss. A place outside of time, I wasn't wearing a watch and so I had no idea how long my father had been heading back to the truck. There was slow droning engine noise in the distance. The deer was still warm when my father returned. I rose, and my father jumped out of the truck rather excitedly. He took his knife from his belt and bid me to do the same. I did so and held the cold handle of my hunting knife in my naked hand. My father removed one of his gloves and cut the throat of the deer, and blood spilled out onto the virgin snow. He took our naked hands and let the deer blood cover them.
“Kneel.” He said, and I did.
He took his hand and dabbed my face; I was now blooded.
“You are now a deer hunter.”
I looked at my reflection in the blade of my bloodied knife.
“It is bloody work, our life.” My father said.
“Comes with our territory.” I said.
“So, you say.” He asked.
“I think so.” I said.
“Good, do what I do.” He said.
We went to work gutting the deer. It was bloody work, but I felt wordless intimacy with the deer I had killed. We were careful not to spoil any meat with careless knife use near the intestines, the deed was done. A pile of entrails, and red snow as a totem of our passage. Field dressing complete, I cleaned my knife. Silent snow fall began.
My father motioned for me to heave the deer into the back of the truck. He lowered the tail gate and I grabbed the legs as I did before and- but I could barely move the deer at all. I stood, puzzled and tried again. It was like the deer had tripled in weight.
“Adrenaline rushes wear off.” My father said as he knelt and hoisted the deer into the truck bed with me.
“I thought I was super strong.” I shrugged, he adjusted my hat.
“Hey, stop that. I’m not a kid.” I sa
id.
“You are deer hunter, as I, your brother and mother.” He said.
“I can provide for myself pretty much now.” I said, prideful.
“Only a fool believes they need only the forest.” He said.
“But don’t we do that?” I said.
“No, we still need each other.” He said.
Our world shrunk further as the snow flurry spiraled. Now finally feeling exhausted and cold I clambered into the heated cab of the truck. My dad piled in and nodded approvingly to me as if to say well done. I listened to the AM radio as we drove home through the endless winding white abyss. The kids at school would never understand the significance of that day.
The atom- damned
The strange beasts born by man. Fattened in caves,
Trained as hounds of war,they take flight.
Flopping carelessly from caves to and fro -Sundering earth and sky
Death knell of an atom- Bright death blinds fools that look up.
Shockwave destroy houses, Gibbering wildly
Flatten trees,
Flesh is charred,
Oblivion- ashen remains,
Poisons all!
Glowing firmament fretted with golden fire,
All born in atoms shadow are insane and malformed.
Fat with pus and bile,
Bitter guilty things,
Wrenching my serenity,
Peace for a pittance,
Pointing and hooting,
Tenderness to a satyr,
Flinging excrement,
Within and without.
The bomb.
When the atoms egg hatches,
The great fire consumes all the victims,
All that remains…
Trapped in the last pose,